<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>When The Circus Came To Town by sweetcarolanne</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447451">When The Circus Came To Town</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne'>sweetcarolanne</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Carnival Is Over - Dead Can Dance (Song)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother-Sister Relationships, Carnival, Circus, Disabled Character, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Family, Gen, Interracial Relationship, Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:08:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,575</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447451</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For most people, the circus is a fun diversion. For Leo, and especially for his sister Lily, it was the only place they wanted to call home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Jukebox 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>When The Circus Came To Town</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/gifts">RobberBaroness</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Many thanks to my anonymous beta.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Leo put on his new wig, its orange woolen fuzz sticking up straight in the air, and Lily giggled.</p><p>“Hedgehog,” she announced, and Leo pretended to frown.</p><p>“Hedgehogs aren’t orange, Lil. Don’t you think it makes me look handsome? If it does, I can run into the ring and sweep Gloria off her feet before she even reaches her trapeze.”</p><p>Lily smiled and shook her head.</p><p>“No, funny!”</p><p>Leo mock-pouted a bit, and then chuckled.</p><p>“Good. A clown is supposed to look funny. Wait till you see me wear this with my new blue and red patchwork trousers and that big baggy shirt with the purple walruses on it!”</p><p>Lily laughed again, and tried to reach up and knock the wig off Leo’s head. Leo evaded her, and Lily started tickling Leo underneath his ribs.</p><p>“Hey, no fair!” he protested, but Lily didn’t stop until he’d fallen off the chair in a wheezing heap of laughter and the wig had flown several feet away. Lily, looking a little startled at her brother’s sudden fall, went and retrieved the wig and helped Leo back into his chair.</p><p>“Shoes too?” she asked, and Leo knew there was no way he would ever be able to get mad at her. He grinned, putting the wig back crookedly on his head and reached for his massive, floppy red shoes that were always polished to a very high shine.</p><p>“Yeah, okay. I know how much you love the shoes. I’ll put them on for you in a minute – but I’ve got something for you, too. Not that you deserve it after being such a tickle monster!”</p><p>Lily was all smiles in an instant. </p><p>“Please? I’ll be good. New doll?”</p><p>“Even better,” Leo told her, and reached for a large white box which he handed over to Lily, beaming.</p><p>Lily opened the box, and gasped in sheer wonder at the magnificence within. Her tiny hands, even more careful than usual, drew out a dress of shimmering pink satin with puffed sleeves and ruffles at the bottom and around the neck.</p><p>Leo grinned at her. “Go on, put it on. I won’t peek. And there’s a matching ribbon for your top-knot in the box too. I bet when Ramona sees you wearing that, she’s going to go out of her mind!”</p><p>Lily hugged and kissed him in effusive thank and scampered off, and Leo kept his word and waited patiently for her to change. When she came back, he let out a long, low whistle, for the dress was a perfect fit and the bow, which Lily was nimble-fingered enough to tie herself, was like a perfect rosebud at the base of the one little curl at the top of Lily’s shaven head. </p><p>The first time Lily had her hair cut off, Leo had thought she might cry, but she hadn’t minded one bit. It meant she was going to be in the show, with lots of people coming to pay her attention. And it also meant that she was going to look like Ramona, which was what Lily had wanted more than anything in the world.</p><p>“Goo-Goo, the Aztec Princess” and “Floofus the Clown” the posters read when the circus came to town these days, but Leo felt the same inside as he always had. And to him, Lily was still the same little girl who had held his hand in the park on that long-ago spring day, wide-eyed at her first view of the circus tents while Mother stood behind the two children and reminded them not to wander too far away from her.  </p><p>Leo was fourteen back then and Lily had only just turned ten, though she seemed to be much younger, and they were so thrilled to be allowed out into the world. For Leo and Lily mostly stayed in the old house with Mother, learning their lessons from her and not playing with any other children lest somebody point at Lily and mock, or seek to do her even greater harm. </p><p>Leo couldn’t understand why anyone would want to hurt his little sister. She was the sweetest soul alive, but Mother said that people were cruel to those who were too different from themselves. Even Father had not been able to understand, leaving soon after Mother refused to send Lily away to what she called “that dreadful place that’s no fit home for one of God’s most precious children.”</p><p>Father was a dull and dusty little man who didn’t laugh or smile, and Leo had never missed him even once.</p><p>The colors and lights of the carnival were wondrous and dazzling, the taste of hot dogs and cotton candy a previously unknown delight. Lily had beamed blissfully and clutched tightly to the Kewpie doll that Leo won for her by knocking down a stack of cans with a well-thrown ball, though she’d had to let Mother hold her new toy as the children rode the carousel and then the Ferris wheel. </p><p> The circus itself was a blaze of brightness and music, with horses and spangled ladies and a ringmaster in a bright scarlet coat and black top-hat.  A magician called The Great Ramon brought forth doves and flowers with a wave of his wand and a flourish of his cloak, and a beautiful black lady named Gloria performed a daring act on a flying trapeze high above the crowd. Leo’s favorites were the clowns who chased each other and fell about all over the ring, making Leo laugh until his sides ached and he wished to be one of them.</p><p>But what Lily loved best of all was the sideshow, where she first laid eyes on Little Ramona, billed as the “Aztec Queen”. </p><p>Ramona was fifteen years old back then, four feet tall and dressed in peacock blue silk; her eyes and top-knot were jet black, and her shoes were shining patent leather of the exact same shade. She sang like a little bird and danced around the place with a sassy smile, captivating Lily who, with a cry of absolute ecstasy, seemed to know that she was seeing someone like herself for the very first time.</p><p>That cry had made Ramona stop her song and gaze at Lily with a rapture that could almost be described as love.</p><p>Murmurs rose all around Lily and Leo and Mother. “Look at them – aren’t they adorable?”</p><p>“Where on earth would they ever find two pinheads?”</p><p>“Is that one part of the show too? Is that her sister?”</p><p>A man in a black suit and a fedora hat approached Mother as she quietly ushered her children out of the sideshow tent. He spoke with Mother in low tones, pulling a very fat wallet from the pocket of his jacket, but Mother held firmly to Leo and Lily’s hands and led them away.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I can’t allow it. She’s too young.”</p><p>It had rained the day when the circus left town, and Leo had to fight to keep from crying himself as he heard Lily’s sobs. Even sitting up late to watch the full moon rise could not console the child who seemed burdened by a loneliness her innocent heart had never known before.</p><p>Day after day, he daubed his face with finger paints and flopped about in an old, loose pair of Father’s trousers that had been carelessly left behind so long ago, doing everything he could to make his sister happy until spring returned and with it, the hue and cry and brilliant glittering magic of the circus.</p><p>For seven years they lived like this, counting the days and the seasons till Lily could see her beloved Ramona again. When Mother became too sick to go to the circus, she encouraged Leo and Lily to go on their own. They were old enough now, she would tell them, smiling through the pain she could barely conceal from Leo’s worried eyes.</p><p>When Leo was twenty-one and Lily was seventeen, Mother was gone and the old house had to be sold. Hand in hand, the brother and sister walked to the wagons and tents they knew and loved, no longer visitors but lost souls returning home.</p><p>No one would ever dare to point and mock at Lily these days. And if anyone tried, they’d have a gang of angry roustabouts to deal with. The night before, a drunken man had tried to throw a bottle and a lighted cigarette at Ramona and Lily, and before the roustabouts even arrived he’d been chased off by Leo and by Ramona’s father, The Great Ramon himself, all shaving cream and shirtsleeves over bulging muscles, red-faced and furious and a very different person from the genial magician he had earlier portrayed. </p><p>Little Ramona, one protective arm around Lily’s waist, had hustled her sweetheart behind a curtain, flinging a volley of Spanish curse words over her shoulder that, thankfully, most of the crowd did not understand.</p><p>Leo grinned again at the memory, then was jolted from his reverie by someone calling from outside.</p><p>Lily’s smile widened, and she dashed out the door and down the painted wagon’s steps to meet Ramona. Holding hands, like pink and yellow butterflies in their gorgeous dresses, the lovebirds ran and danced their way through the circus camp, their voices melodically blending into the babel of a brand new day.</p><p>His heart overflowing with warmth, Leo leaned out the open door and yelled, “Hey, Lily! LILY! You forgot your shoes!”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>